LucasArts Update

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LucasArts Shut Down

Star Wars fans have had a lot things to rejoice about as of late. Here comes the bitter after so much sweet. It appears Disney has laid off LucasArts employees and shut down the division that develops the company's video games. This means games that were in the works like Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault are as good as gone.

Lucasfilm had this to say:

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games," LucasArts parent company LucasFilm said in a statement. "As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

Though we here at Mania are sad to see LucasArts close, the last games to really have any punch were developed externally. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: Battlefront (by BioWare and Pandemic Studios). The last games to emerge from LucasArts were Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, its sequel, and Kinect Star Wars. We’d be lying if we said those last two were our all time favorite Star Wars games. On the flip side we were looking forward to Star Wars 1313, so there was still hope for that property in our eyes.

COMMENTS AND RESPONSES

As great as KOTR and it's sequel were LucasArts hit their hight in the 90's with X-Wing's sequel Tie Fighter ... everything after was them trying to get that one great hit they had previously ... came pretty damn close with KOTR, but still nothing beats Tie Fighter.

Wrrlykam, agreed. Like so many things in todays world, we are moving towards less substance, more flash. LucasArts in their heyday were kings of the Adventure Game, a genre that is sadly pretty much dead, except for a few Indie games, and the oocastional AAA Title that pops up. Games today rely on flash, graphics, and very little story......much like todays movies. So sad indeed.

This doesn't bother me too much since the only good SW games in recent memory were not made by LucasArts (KOTOR). I do feel bad for all the folks who lost their job, though.

Force Unleashed was okay, but it was only about 15 minutes long. Really, you have to go back to Rebel Assault/X-Wing/Tie-Fighter era games to find anything good from LucasArts. I also loved the SNES games.

Licensing is definitely the smarter move. Let the developers who are actually good at making video games handle the franchise.

Presumably 1313 was going to be used as something of a link-in to the live action series supposedly set in the Coruscant underworld (I base this on a comment by a 1313 producer that we'd be seeing more of this side of the Star Wars universe in the near future). Given that the show is now on the waybackburner, I'm not suprised the game has been axed. Maybe another studio will pick it up though.

Would like 1313 to get the green light again and see what it turns into but the last game I really cared for from this studio was KOTOR, I dont think a studio that turns out titals like kinect star wars was long for this world.